Ursula Hegi's Sacred Time is a stunning novel of the complex and fragile relationships formed between people who find themselves related by marriage.
Hegi draws you into the lives of three women -- Leonora, her sister-in-law, Floria, and Floria's daughter, Belinda -- and Anthony, Leonora's son. Following the death of her husband, Malcolm, Floria is forced to move in with her brother and his family (Leonora and Anthony), bringing her twin daughters who share Anthony's bedroom with him.
As any young boy approaching his teenage years would be, Anthony is quite put out by having to share his room. But in a strange twist of fate, Anthony may have been responsible for Bianca's death. The death of a twin sibling is usually quite traumatic for the surviving twin, but Belinda and Floria begin an emotional tip-toeing that leaves each unaware of the fact that they are coping, and that life does indeed go on following trauma.
But the main story revolves around Anthony and Leonora, their own emotional ties through separation, reunion, and separation again of Leonora and her husband. These are lives half lived, half realized, and only time helps them truly make reparations for their pasts.
Hegi's characters are thoroughly human and flawed individuals, making them utterly believable and sympathetic. In Sacred Time, we see evidence of the emotional and physical violence that we can do to those we love, and how love can ultimately redeem us.
